Objects in Motion
by graysonsflight
Summary: Dick figures if he can just keep moving, he will never be in one place long enough to screw something up. Far away from people he could hurt, Dick is trying his hardest to let go, but the past is always there. At home, Artemis and Barb have been running too. Not sleeping, surviving on caffeine, the pair of them are trying everything they can to avoid a breakdown.


**AN** : This story takes place following my other story _A Fine Line_. They are both prequels to the story _Metus_ , and can be read independently. Thanks for reading!

 **Objects in Motion**

Dick tightened his fingers around the strap of the duffle bag reflexively. The jolting sway of the train had made it impossible to sleep. He was fairly certain that with everything going on, he hadn't slept for more than a scattered two hours in the last seventy-two. Not that he had really wanted to. Any time Dick closed his eyes, Wally's face was there. The redhead was laughing, or cursing a blue streak as he lost at video games, or chewing Dick out for his mistakes. Despite being the least frequent in real life, it was almost always what his mind came back to now.

Dick could feel his heart beginning to beat erratically.

For the past seven months, Dick had been what Wally had called "an object in motion." The speedster had explained that Dick was moving too fast, ironic really, coming from him. Wally told him that he was going to just keep going and going until something crashed into him, unbalancing him and forcing him to stop. Dick had laughed at the time, but Wally had been completely serious. Now, Dick would give anything to have that lecture thrown in his face again. He didn't even care how many times Wally said "I told you so."

Instead, Dick was trying to live his life in fast-forward. He figured if he could just keep moving, he would never be in any one place long enough to screw something up. Methodically, Dick rubs his fingers over the duffle's strap, counting back from ten over and over again. He breathed in slowly, in through his nose and out through his mouth. Slowly, bit-by-bit, he forced the panic back into its box, just as Bruce had taught him to do as a boy. Someday, he might be willing to let it out, and let it consume him, but here, in the middle of nowhere on a train full of strangers, was not the place. He ran a hand through his hair. He needed a shower.

Breathing back to normal, Dick tried to sift though all the jagged pieces in his head. There was apart of his brain that didn't believe it. A part of him refused to believe that anything that had happened in the last fifty-six hours was real. The Reach trying to eradicate the planet – Luthor swooping in with the rescues plan – Wally…Wally West "ceasing" to exist – Barbara finally saying that she loved him, only for him to run away. It didn't matter. None of it mattered at this point.

All of these bits and pieces of his life stopped mattering the second he had made up his mind. The minute he'd drained a small savings account, shut his wallet in a desk drawer, threw his cellphone in a dumpster outside of Gotham and ran, nothing seemed to matter anymore. Only, he couldn't convince his head of that. He leaned back against the rattling glass of the window. He wanted to stop feeling, wanted the numbness to swallow him whole.

By the time Dick had managed to bribe his way onto an international flight, and touched down in some little Eastern European hovel, he knew that there was no going back. This, all of _this_ was his fault. He had let a lot of people down and now he would live with his self-imposed exile. He was determined to cut out everyone left from his life before they had the chance to realize it was in their best interest to cut him out of theirs. Or worse, before he hurt them too. An image of another redhead flashed though his mind, the trust she had in him evident in her eyes. It was a mistake. Trusting him would always be a mistake; Dick knew that everything he touched eventually broke apart.

The train shuddered uncomfortably to a stop. Dick stood up, pulled the duffle bag over his shoulder and secured it with another hand on its straps. It wasn't like there was much in it. A few changes of clothes – mostly underwear and a few different shirts, a few basic toiletries – like the razor he knew he could ignore for a few more days, and an empty notebook. Everything that was truly important to him was on his body.

His parents' wedding bands hung from a leather cord around his neck, the cool circles pressing reassuringly into his chest. His dad's beat-up leather jacket, still too big on him, hung around his shoulders. Both his cash and his collapsed escrimas were tucked deep into the pockets of his hand-me-down black cargo pants. Well, they were basically hand-me-downs. The pants had belonged to his younger brother. They had belonged to Jason Todd – two years younger, and Jason had already filled out more then than Dick had now. Or, if he was honest, Jason had filled out more than Dick probably ever would. It didn't hurt that Jason had worn his pants a little looser than Dick normally would have.

But Jason was another mistake that Dick had made. The kid had been another name on the list of bodies Dick could easily tie back to himself. Tula, Jason, and now Wally. All of their deaths, in one-way or another, Dick could trace back to his actions. And this only took into account the friends who had actually died, not the people he'd undoubtedly hurt – the ones who because of him, and the things he'd asked of them – were now dead inside.

Dick shook himself. He could feel the old familiar panic starting to creep its way into his chest. He didn't have time for this. He didn't have the mental capacity he needed to deal with his "panic issues," and he very much doubted anyone walking by him would be inclined to stop and help. So he kept moving, focusing on his breathing, on each individual beat of his heart.

"Nepieciešama vieta, kur palikt, diezgan viens?"* A woman with a leering smile asked, stepping out infront of him.

Dick backed away from her on instinct. The way she was looking at him made him incrdibly uncomfortable. He didn't really understand what she was saying; languages had never been his specility. Hell, his dyslexia had exempted him from the langaue requirement back at Gotham Acadmey – even if he had fought to take Atlantian anyway. His eyes darting around, he very much doubted his basic understanding of Atlantian was going to be of any use to him here anyway.

While the woman had retreated back into the shadows, something else caught Dick's eye. It was unusually bright and colorful amough the shades of brown and grey that surounded him. He moved towards it with a smile.

 ** _Infantino and Swan's Amazing Circus!_**

The sign had all the information Dick needed on it – helpfully printed in three different languages. It would be a hike, but the city listed wasn't too far away. He figured that he could get there before the show started. Dick allowed himself to smile, just a little. The thought of circus tents did a lot calm the panic that had been growing inside of him. He would offer his services as a road hand. There'd be plenty of time later for him to show them his real skills. With a look at the greying map plastered to the front of the train depot's noticeboard, Dick readjusted his duffle bag and continued onward.

Running. She was running, going faster than she ever could have imagined. _Wally!_ She could feel herself scream, the sound being torn from her throat. _Wally!_ She wanted more than anything to catch up with him, but as always the blur and flash of his form remained just out of range. Artemis could feel her legs beginning to cramp and her lungs burning. It felt like she was dying.

A tiny part of her wished that that were true. It was a dream; she knew it was because she had had it so many times. Almost every night it happened, over and over again she could see him – almost touch him as she sprinted after him. But the truth was that she was never going to be able to catch him. She waited patiently to wake-up from her own private hell.

The steady, persistent, beeping of the comm. link finally did the trick. Stiffly, she reached across to her bedside table to pick up the earpiece. Glancing at the clock, she knew there was only one person who'd be trying to get a hold of her at 4:30 in the morning. Artemis taped the audio feed on.

"Hey," came the short, exhausted, greeting from the other end. The voice was raspy; it's owner probably hadn't been sleeping, or she, like Artemis had been trapped in a dream before calling.

"Hey," Artemis replied sounding equally exhausted. Despite the hour, Artemis was grateful. Frankly, the fact that she'd been dragged out of her nightmare made Artemis consider it a favor.

"I woke you up," Barbara stated instead of asking. She didn't exactly sound apologetic – just matter of fact. It was Barbara Gordon's default mode these days. Artemis was convinced Barbara was one of the only people who came close to understanding how she felt.

"You sure did. But I already know how that dream ends so…" She trailed off, beginning to sit up and stretch. "I don't mind, Barb, really." It was mostly true anyway. Artemis figured some sick sadistic part of her enjoyed the dream – if only because it meant she at least got to see glimpses of Wally.

"Same one?" Barbara asked.

"Isn't it always?" She wished, just once, her mind would throw in some happy memories too. The silence dragged on half a beat too long.

"I couldn't sleep," Barbara blurted out. "I actually tried this time." Her voice made it sound like she was close to tears, but the odds of Barbara Gordon actually breaking down in front of someone else, even via comm. link, were slim to none. She forced herself to be stronger than that. Sometimes, Artemis couldn't decide if it was envy or pity that she felt more. Regardless, she smirked.

"How much coffee did you drink this time?" Artemis asked wryly. The two of them dealt with grief in very different ways. While Artemis wrapped herself up in blankets and threw herself into her nightmares, Barbara did everything she could to avoid them. The redhead had taught herself a new language in the three and a half week since… well, since Wally had saved the world…and Dick had run away.

"Do you want to get something to eat? I know a few places that are open twenty-four hours near your new place." Barbara offered, completely ignoring her question.

"You mean, do I want to sit across from you as neither one of us eat and you drink a pot of diner coffee?" Artemis corrected, already feeling herself throw the covers off.

"We could both try…" Barbara offered honestly, but even she sounded a little doubtful.

"We could," Artemis agreed. "Worse case scenario, we can both tell Dinah we're making the attempt."

"And she'll be so proud of our progress," the hint of laughter filtered into Barbara's voice.

Artemis's therapy sessions had started the day after Wally's private memorial service. Barbara's had begun three days later when Artemis found her having a panic attack in supply closet because the redhead had convinced herself she needed to tramp down any feelings of loss because, as she had put it "I don't deserve this; I can't be acting like I lost something I didn't really have." Artemis had called bullshit. Just because her "pain was more justified" (Barbara's words) didn't mean that her friend's pain wasn't real – or worthy of being felt.

Dinah had been trying to convince both of them that there was a grieving process and that they were allowed to take as much time as they needed. They had both been back working in one way or another – although other teammates had been trying their well-intentioned damndest to keep them sidelined. And when they weren't allowed into the field – they'd thrown themselves in to other things. Artemis had moved back to Gotham. Barbara had rebuilt her computer.

She had waited for any type of reassurance that Dick was fine – that he was just experiencing his own "grieving process" but the absolute radio silence from the first Boy Wonder, and the very deliberate ghosting without speaking to anyone – not even Batman, had everyone spooked. So now, Barbara spent a lot of time scouring surveillance feeds and trying to get a ping on Dick's location.

The sound of both of them faking pathetic laughter had dragged on for just a little too long. They both knew it, and it stopped with a real snort of sardonic laughter from Artemis.

"So am I picking you up, or meeting you there?" she asked. She was rewarded with a huff.

"I am not riding on the back of your bike," Barbara told her. "I'll meet you there."

So the walk had been a little longer than Dick had thought. He sighed heavily, shifting the weight of his bag. Either that or this whole not really sleeping thing was actually starting to take its toll. Despite the exhaustion, the sight in front of him made him smile. The brightly colored green and yellow pinstripes called to him. While they weren't the white and red of his childhood, they'd do. He let his eyes dart around the grounds, spotting the mismatched trailers, and started that way. The business trailer would be there somewhere and then all he had to do was charm his way in. Piece of cake. Dick let out a surprised yelp as he was lifted from the ground by his shirt collar. He'd let his guard down, only for a second, but it had been enough.

A burly man, with a think dark beard, spun him around and dropped him back onto the ground.

"Kak vy dumayete, chto vy sobirayetes' , malen'kaya mysh'?"* the man growled at him, standing at least a foot taller than Dick's six foot frame, the man was full of rippling muscles. Dick straitened himself out as much as he could, swallowing down his irritation at someone getting the drop on him. He needed them to take him in so picking a fight with the first person he met, presumably the show's Strong Man if his size and dark blue spandex getup were any indication. " _I'm sorry_ ," Dick managed to say, only his words didn't come out the way he'd planned. He'd spoken them in Romani. He let his eyes fall quickly. Not everyone was a huge fan of the Travelers – but he was hoping here it wouldn't have just cost him a job. But the man just stared at him, one bushy eyebrow raised higher than the other. Dick tried again. "I'm sorry," he repeated, this time in English, his American accent clear. The big man started to laugh. "An American mouse then, yeah?" His English was accented too, but perfectly understandable. "You've run an awful long way to join the circus, Little Mouse." The man kept laughing, his hand heavy, but not menacingly so, on Dick's shoulder. "And do you have a name, or shall I bring you to the boss as Mouse?" Dick snapped his mouth shut, trying very hard not to be offended by the consistent insult to his size. "Dan," he found himself answering before he'd had too much time to think about it. The man nodded, looking Dick up and down. Dick knew there wasn't much to see. Dressed as he was, his tight aerialists muscles were pretty well hidden. "Does that come with a last name too, Dan?" The way he said it, Dick could tell the man knew it was a fake name – although how he'd guessed was a mystery. It didn't matter. So long as they let him stay, it wouldn't matter. "Does it need to?" Dick let himself meet the man's eyes with a smile, his confidence back and the Grayson charm in place. His booming laugh filled the air again, and he smacked Dick's back good-naturedly. It knocked Dick forward a bit, although not as far as the man had been expecting. So that was a win.

"For now," he said with a smile. "For now, Dan will do fine. Although Little Mouse I like better." The man began to steer Dick through the grounds closer to the trailers, leading him this way and that.

"I am Grigory Petrov, you will call me Petrov" the man said proudly. "Besides I am in charge of step up and break down here. We are small, but we are a good crew." Dick nodded along, his eyes darting left and right, taking in the world around him. It took him back to a time in his life when everything had been so much easier. The sound of laughter jarred him from his past. It was loud and crass – the clowns practicing for their bit in tonight's show. Dick sighed. His world had definitely changed.

"Are you listening to me, Little Mouse?" Petrov asked, his voice curious.

"I'm sorry," Dick said, turning to give the man his full attention. "It's just been a long time since I've been anywhere like this."

"You've been somewhere like this before?" Petrov asked, his voice laughing as he let his arms go wide.

Dick clammed up. He didn't want to tell him. Not really. For his part, Petrov let it go.

"The real question Daniel Mouse," he said, his voice dropping in volume but gaining warmth. "What are you hoping to find here?"

"I'm looking for work," Dick answered honestly. "I'm good with my hands and I can take orders well." He hesitated, a smile on his face. That part was mostly true. He could take orders very well – but that didn't mean he always did. If Petrov noticed, he said nothing; he just nodded appraisingly.

"Mmmm."

Dick stood as tall as he could under the man's gaze.

"Your jacket," Petrov said. "Take it off, I need a better look at you."

Dick did as he was asked, setting his bag down in the brown grass and shrugging out of his jacket. Slowly, he stood in his t-shirt as Petrov walked a circle around him. He tried to fight down the panic of being exposed.

"Something else too, Daniel Mouse," he said once he'd come round front again. "You're lean yes, but I can see you are strong. What else do you do?" Dick didn't know how to answer. He wanted to be up in the air as soon as possible, but he knew his skills might bring more attention than he wanted.

"I…" he started. "I'm a gymnast." Well it wasn't completely a lie. "I'm pretty good on the rings." Still not a lie. "And I guess…" he paused, trying to weave together truths in his head. "I guess I've got a thing for the adrenaline kick of flying."

Petrov nodded his head solemnly. "Tonight, you will work with me after the show. We'll be moving out in the morning. When we arrive, I'll introduce you to our trapeze artists. We have three. You will learn from them."

Dick smiled, picking his bag back up and holding his father's jacket tight. Things weren't perfect, not by a long shot, but maybe, just maybe, they were looking up.

The girls met less than twenty minutes later at an all-night diner Barbara had recommended. Both of them arrived in haphazardly constructed ponytails and well loved clothing. They were clean, if not well put together.

"Nice shirt," Barbara offered with a smile. She knew that the over large Stanford University hoodie had not originally belonged to Artemis, just like this particular Gotham Academy hoodie Barbara had thrown on wasn't really hers either. The blonde only rolled her eyes.

"You too." They sat together and ordered a plate of pancakes to share. Barbara faked a smile for the waitress as she asked for her coffee. Artemis just stuck with tea; the caffeine, she knew, would only have made her jittery. They didn't really talk as they waited, their feet occasionally brushing up against one another – but neither one of them minded the contact or the silence.

A little more than half way through her first cup of coffee, Barbara looked up with an almost sarcastic smile.

"You look…"

"Like shit?" Artemis offered sharing in the smirk.

"Wasn't what I was going to say," Barbara answered, pounding the rest of her coffee and putting her fake smile back on while she made eye contact with the waitress. The woman understood, and moved towards them with the coffee pot.

"I know. You wouldn't." Artemis replied. They both smiled at the waitress this time. Artemis didn't like how it felt, but she didn't want to terrify the poor woman by dropping it suddenly. After she'd left, she shifted her eyes to the redhead across from her. "How are you sleeping?"

Barbara avoided her masterfully with a half shrug, and her eyes boring into the coffee cup as if it could actually give her answers. Artemis wrinkled her nose. When the dark brew offered no wisdom, Barbara looked up.

"Probably not any worse then you," she responded. Artemis choked back a snort.

"Babs, I don't think you actually sleep." she indicated the cup clutched protectively in Barbara's hands. "I actually nod off once in a while." Barbara shook her head skeptically, still nursing her coffee.

"Have the nightmares gotten any better?" Artemis shrugged this time. They did this a lot; this dancing around each other, both of them asking stupid questions that they already knew the answers to. But at least neither one of them ever asked the most reviled one. The useless "Are you doing okay?" and its many ridiculous iterations, including, but not limited to: "How are you?" "Do you need to talk?" "What can I do?" "How are you feeling?" and so on and so forth until the end of time.

No, the two of them were more specific – more pointed and as such, possibly more sadistic. They may have already known the answers – but the questions were always precise: "Have you slept?" "Have you eaten?" and they both knew which _specific_ questions to avoid. For example, Artemis never asked Barbara if she'd found anything. She knew. She knew damn well that if Babs _had_ found anything, she would have said so. In kind, Barbara never asked how the research up at the "ceasing point" was going. If it had turned up anything, they both would have known.

"Not that one." Artemis sighed, her hands running through her hair nervously. Another good thing about talking with Barbara is that she was always willing to let a question go if it got too close – and when it got too close – it was usually because the younger girl was deflecting.

Barbara set the coffee cup down, but kept it way closer than any normal person would, an imaginary shield from the world.

"Sorry," she mumbled. Artemis nudged her with her foot.

"You can't handle the nightmares anymore, can you? That's why you asked?" Artemis ventured. Barbara raised an eyebrow in response. "You don't have to lie to me, Barb, I know what it's like."

"It doesn't matter if I'm sleeping or not," Barb replied taping her temple with a finger. "My brain replays things in the background all the time anyways." Artemis looked skeptical, but Barbara kept going. "But the thing is, you do know what it's like. I don't want to talk about me, Artemis. I feel like such an ass when I do." Again, Artemis made to stop her, but Barbara plowed through it.

"Our losses weren't the same. You and Wally were together… and he… you lost him… And I…"

"Look, at least I have something kind of like closure. Wally is gone and he isn't coming back." They could both feel Artemis' lie. They both knew Artemis didn't feel like she had closure – nor had she really truly accepted that Wally wasn't coming back, but Barbara didn't correct her. Artemis bit her lip and determinedly changed the subject. "Besides, worrying about you at least gives me a break from myself." That part was true at least.

They passed a few moments in relative silence, Barbara's green eyes moving from her coffee to the ceiling. The tiles offered her no better information than her coffee had, so she opened her mouth instead.

"I'm not finding anything, and it's frustrating the hell out of me," she said, her fingers absently brushing against the silver bird charm hanging from her neck. "I know he's pretty good at covering his tracks, but there should be _something_."

Artemis slid the hand she'd had resting on the table forward, fingers touching the hand Barbara had wrapped around the warm mug. They were treading on dangerous ground here; this was a "don't ask topic." She didn't speak, just waited.

"There should be something," Barbara repeated, the barest hint of desperation starting to creep in – that telltale sign that maybe, just maybe Barbara had had a bit too much coffee.

"If it exists, you'll find it," Artemis reassured. Now it was Barbara's turn to looks skeptical.

"Maybe, maybe not," she shrugged. "I know Dick Grayson like the back of my hand. The problem is, he knows me too. He knows how I think and how I would likely be looking for him. He knows the same about Bruce too – but Bruce…" she trailed off, her hand motioning in general frustration. "He's driving me crazy too," she said finally. Artemis's eyebrows knit into a frown.

"What do you mean?"

"He knows something I don't," Barbara confessed. "He knows something, and he isn't willing to share."

"That's not really new though, is it?" Artemis laughed humorlessly. Barbara shared in the smirk, before her features turned back to the seriousness that was becoming her custom.

"It's not, but we've never really dealt with something like this before. This isn't like what happened with…" she stopped, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth as if only just realizing where she was going with her line of thinking.

Artemis let her trail off, neither one of them wanted to fill in the blank spaces. When Jason died, everything seemed to have frozen in place. All of a sudden, everyone on the team had been forced to grapple with his or her own mortality. Each of them had dealt with loss individually before, but this time they had had to face it as a group. For a little while, it looked like the team might even be shut down. Both Bruce and Dick did shut down. It had taken Tim to bring them both back.

"Anyway," Barbara's voice cut into the silence, "Bruce is almost acting like this whole disappearing thing is no big deal." She turned, her face even more serious, dropping her voice low in a halfway decent impersonation: "He'll be back." Artemis rolled her eyes at the dramatics.

"Didn't Boss-man do some crazy soul searching thing when he was younger? Maybe he thinks that's what Dick's doing."

"Maybe," Barbara conceded, but she didn't sound even a little bit convinced.

"But?" Artemis countered.

"Huh?" she replied, her eyes looking a mile away.

"There's a but in there, Babs. Dick isn't the only one who knows you," Artemis tapped her own nose with a sad smile. "What aren't you saying?" Barbara sighed, meeting Artemis' eyes full on.

"You know how he gets," she offered weakly. "You know he climbs just a little too high, and he just a little too loose when it comes to his own safety."

"An Icarus, yeah."

"But he's always had someone to pull him back," Barbara added, making Artemis smirk.

"You mostly." Barbara didn't answer. She didn't have to. She had almost always been there, adding in a clam to the chaos that was Dick Grayson's mind. Except this time. This time, he hadn't let her in on the secret; this time, he had shut her out, even before he had run.

If both of the girls were honest though, they would admit that they both liked to fly a little too high and a little too fast as well. They had the scars on their bodies and on their souls to prove it.

"I'm going to be getting my hair cut tomorrow," Artemis announced abruptly breaking the silence. "You should come with me."

"Yeah?" Barbara asked, laughing a little bit to push back the darkness. She glanced down at her watch. "Tomorrow, tomorrow or later today?" Artemis shrugged dramatically.

"Today, tomorrow, does it really matter? Were you planning anything else?" They both knew that she wasn't. "Come back to my place for now, we'll both pretend to sleep a little better with someone else around."

With a shrug, Barbara drops her money for the waitress on the table. They were both quiet as they head for the door. Today, today they could handle. Tomorrow they would try again, and the next day, and the next. They were objects in motion who would continue until the next thing cam along to knock them to their knees.

 **End Notes:**

* "Need a place to stay, pretty one?" – in Latvian

* "Where do you think you're going, little mouse?" – in Russian


End file.
